Thursday 29 March 2012 10.14 EDT
First published on Thursday 29 March 2012 10.14 EDT

It was the middle of the day when Tabisou, 72, suddenly saw people from her town, Anderamboukane, fleeing for their lives. Her family had no time to pack their things: the fighting had already begun.

"Everything I have worked for over my whole life was lost. Just like that," said Tabisou, sitting in a UNHCR tent at Abala refugee camp, 53 miles from the Mali-Niger border. "We had to leave all our animals and food."

Tabisou is one of nearly 200,000 refugees who have had to flee their homes since January, when conflict erupted in northern Mali. After Libyan rebels ousted Muammar Gaddafi last August, hundreds of Tuareg mercenaries hired by him fled back to Mali with heavy weapons to restart their own rebellion.

The main group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) claims to fight against the marginalisation and oppression of the Tuareg people in northern Mali.

Tabisou and most of the refugees in Abala camp do not care much for the MNLA's grievances. "I am an old lady, and have many grandchildren," she says, pointing to the gaunt, grubby faces baking around her in the tent. "The rebels do not care about us, they treated us very badly."

Another refugee, Maria, says rebels came into her home, waved guns in her face, and asked all the children to line up outside. "I thought they were going to kill us," she said. "Luckily two of the rebels told the others to calm down."

Most of the refugees in Abala camp are not Tuareg but from the Songhai ethnic group. According to Ibrahim Ag Abdil, a 30-year-old pastoralist, few Songhai people support the MNLA's cause. "Mali is already a very poor country, we have to rely on the US, UK and Europe for aid," he said. "The MNLA are just making more divisions. How can we survive as two countries, when we are barely surviving as one?"

Ag Abdil says the MNLA stole all the motorbikes from his town, which belonged to the civilians. After the MNLA left, says Ag Abdil, bandits entered the city and looted all the shops, and homes. "We don't know if there is even anything left," he said. "The MNLA are not protecting civilians' possessions, they are just attacking towns, leaving them, and then the place is empty for bandits to come and steal."

Next to him, Ajawa, 72, nodded. "They say they fight for all the Tuareg but in fact they only fight for a few; many Tuaregs don't support them," he said. "Now we're stuck in this camp. It is painful to see my people begging for handouts, and our children not able to go to school."

When the MNLA arrived in the town, the citizens fled and walked two months to find refuge in Niger. When these refugees first arrived, they stayed in a makeshift camp at Sinegodar, 6 miles from the border. "We were always worrying about warmth at night, and food during the day," says Salima. Several of the children in Abala camp are visibly malnourished, and NGO workers are concerned about potential epidemics.

Last weekend, the UNHCR, together with the International Organisation for Migration, transferred 2,100 refugees to the newly created Abala camp, which has a capacity for 10,000 refugees. It is estimated that around 26,000 refugees have fled to Niger, with the rest in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and more than 60,000 internally displaced inside Mali.

According to Antonio Jose Canhandula, heading UNHCR's emergency team, his biggest concern for UNHCR at the moment is that the refugees are entering into a food crisis in Niger. He is also concerned about the effects of the recent coup in Mali will have on the situation.

"The coup in Mali could mean that the rebels take advantage of the power vacuum and attempt to consolidate their positions," he said. "This would later be followed by a counterattack by the central government and result in another influx of refugees and prolong the crisis."